Membership Benefits

To help incentivize constituents to become loyal members, your organization may offer exclusive benefits — such as reduced admission, t-shirts, or other merchandise — to thank them for their membership, based on the category or dues paid. You can view the benefits a member receives on their constituent record or the gift record of their membership dues payment.

  • On the constituent record, you can view how many benefits the member receives under Membership. For details about the incentives, select View benefits.

  • On the gift record, you can view details about these incentives under Benefits. For each benefit, you can view how many the member receives, what it’s worth to both you and the member, and when you sent or fulfilled it.

Tip: Depending on the cost to join a membership and the benefits received, a constituent may be able to deduct some, all, or none of the dues from their taxes as a charitable gift. For information, see Tax-Deductible Dues.

Since these benefits are often why constituents become members at your organization, we recommend you identify and offer items that members want and appreciate enough to keep them engaged. To help grow and retain your memberships, discuss the benefits with your members and potential members to determine which provide the most value.

To determine valuable benefits, ask your current members — in-person or through a survey — what they're looking for and what would give them value. Listen to their feedback and suggestions and respond accordingly.

Discuss how to create value for your memberships with everyone at your organization who has insight into your members and programs, such as board members and volunteers. To help find unique and distinctive benefits, don't shoot down ideas out-of-hand and let creativity flow.

After you set up your membership programs and their benefits, communicate their value to members and potential members to help increase engagement. Include a list of benefits on your website and in appeals and marketing communications that you send to prospective donors.

Note: In the database view, you can add and manage default membership benefits for each membership category from Membership Categories under Configuration.